Do CFOs Have Style? An Empirical Investigation of the Effect of Individual CFOs on Accounting Practices

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ge, Weili; Matsumoto, Dawn; Zhang, Jenny Li
• 署名单位: University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle; University of British Columbia
• 刊物名称: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0823-9150
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1911-3846.2011.01097.x
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1141-+
• 关键词: earnings management; UPPER ECHELONS; risk-aversion; corporate governance; firm performance; TOP MANAGERS; CEOS; CONSEQUENCES; determinants; INVESTMENT

摘要

This paper examines the effect of Chief Financial Officers' (CFOs') individual philosophy or style on corporate accounting choices. We track 359 CFOs across different firms over time and investigate whether CFO-specific factors explain a firm's accounting choices. We find that, across a wide range of accounting choices, individual CFOs are an important determinant of accounting practices. Moreover, the effect of CFO styles appears to be stronger under conditions of high CFO discretion and high CFO job demands. We also trace the CFO style to observable CFO characteristics by examining whether CFOs' gender, age, and educational background affect their styles. We find limited evidence of the impact of these CFO characteristics on accounting choices, suggesting that these common and observable characteristics capture only a small portion of CFO styles. Taken together, our findings expand the literature on the determinants of accounting choices by highlighting manager-specific factors as a new dimension of determinants worth considering for future work in the area.